They'll call it chance, or luck, or call it Fate

I finally got a haircut this weekend! I hadn't had one since I arrived in Japan. My hair had a bunch of split ends and no more layers, so I knew it was time to find a salon. I ended up making an appointment at Sin Den, an English speaking salon in Harajuku that I had heard some good things about. It was slightly pricey, but I'd say it was worth it. I wanted to find a salon that spoke English because I've never formally learned any haircut vocab in Japanese and I didn't want to chance fucking something up by trying to say what I wanted in Japanese. My stylist was a younger Japanese woman who spoke English well. She gave me a cute haircut and my hair feels so much lighter and healthier now. And as an added bonus, the salon also gives head massages after they shampoo your hair. Very nice. I think I'll go back to Sin Den then next time I need a good haircut.

After my haircut, I met up with Leslie in Harajuku. Poor Anna couldn't join us because she was sick again. We decided to have lunch at Hideaway, a treehouse cafe that we stumbled upon a couple weekends ago. It's not exactly a treehouse, but it's treehouse themed. It's on the second floor of a smaller building and the inside of it looks like a treehouse. There's even a tree growing through the floor and out the roof! The atmosphere inside was very chill and comfy. There was reggae music playing and a bunch of nature books on the shelves. They also had yummy lunch sets for a reasonable 1,000 yen. I had a pork stew bowl that was pretty good. I'd like to go back to the cafe again. 

( Pictures~ )

On Sunday, Leslie and I met up again, this time in Shinjuku. We ended up browsing clothes at Alta. We didn't have the intention of making major purchases, but the new spring clothes are starting to appear in stores, so we decided to check them out. Based on what we saw in Harajuku and Shinjuku, I'm going to guess that Easter egg pastels and deconstructed sweaters are going to be "in" this spring. I'm digging the deconstructed sweaters, but not a huge fan of the pastel colors. For lunch, Leslie and I ended up splitting takoyaki and we each bought taiyaki for dessert. My taiyaki was cookies & cream flavored, a bit of an unusual flavor for taiyaki, but pretty good. I'm pretty sure there were Oreos inside it. We went over to the Marui One after eating. It's always fun to check out the goth & loli clothes, even if they are pricey. There was a cute shirt and skirt set at h.NAOTO that I've got my eye on. The skirt's a little more frilly that I've been going for recently, but I like it. We'll see if I decide to go back for it. Leslie and I did end up getting artbooks by Yoshimi Ohtani though. I really like her illustration style. The colors and the patterns are lovely. When then decided to go to Closet Child after the Marui One. I ended up getting a shirt from h.NAOTO's Dark Red Rum line because I fell in love with it and they were selling it for a pretty good price. It's this awesome black deconstructed shirt with really long sleeves. Definitely the gothiest piece of clothing I own. I can't wait for a good opportunity to wear it.

In addition to the usual teaching, this week is mostly going to involve me making the upcoming final exam. A bit time consuming, but I've already got somewhere between a quarter and half of it done. It'll be nice when I've finished it though, at least it will be until I have to grade all the exams. xD

This weekend was fun, but very tiring. By Friday night stellawind, Greta, Nicole, and Zuryvette had all arrived at my house for the weekend. I was so happy to see them! I really miss them. Saturday was my (and Adam's) graduation party. It was good to get the chance to see most of my relatives before I leave for Japan (though I think I answered the same three questions about when I was leaving, where I would be living, and who I'd be teaching a million times). Seeing my friends was nice too because I haven't seen most of them very much this summer. I was happy that yaexrae visited on Saturday, too! It would have been nice to have a bit more time with my friends, but I wanted to also visit with my family. One of my favorite parts of the party was when my friends and I were playing with Hayden, helping him blow bubbles. It was too cute. I'm going to miss that little guy while I'm gone. I also laughed at the fact that my neighbor assumed there was something going on between DJ and I, even though I told her he was just a friend. (I think I've lost count of the number of people who've assumed that DJ and I are together, lol.) I also loved getting to see baby Graysen and holding him. He's so sweet~

Saturday was a good day. DJ, Kala, Jessie, Kyle and I all met up and went downtown to Lincoln Park Zoo. It had been such a long time since I'd been there (my family normally goes to Brookfield Zoo, which is nicer, but more expensive). We were there for most of the afternoon and managed to see most of the zoo. My favorite part was the adorable meerkats that kept staring at us. DJ and I did decide that the zoo was a liar, however. There were supposed to be red pandas there and we could not find them, which I was disappointed about because red pandas are adorable. We have up our search though because it was time to meet up with Allison and Alyssa for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Because of unfortunate timing on Allison and Alyssa's part, we caught the dinner rush and had to wait for an hour and a half to be seated. It was so crowded, but luckily we were able to wait inside because it started pouring buckets of rain. The wait was worth it in the end. The Cheesecake Factory is always delicious. I had a chicken avocado club sandwich and chocolate mousse cheesecake for dessert. Mmm, the cheesecake was so good! I was so full by the end of the meal. By the time we walked to the train station (it had thankfully stopped raining) and waited for the train, I was tired. I napped for a good part of the ride home.

I haven't been doing much today. I watched the first episode of Sengoku Basara 2 (FUCK YEAH) and that made me happy. It's nice to have another series that I'm really excited about watching back. I've been watching some other stuff since DRRR!! ended, but haven't been super into most of it. I now plan on using the rest of the day to start reading Merrick, which I picked up at Borders yesterday. I was sick of not having any new books to read and I wanted a Vampire Chronicles fix.

Last night was the second week in a row that I had dinner with Emily and Brad. They're both in my Kurosawa class and every week before our Wednesday night movie showings they go out for Japanese food. They've recently started inviting me along with them. Brad's girlfriend Kaylee normally comes along, as well. Then, if we have time, we get coffee at The Pourhouse and grab snacks at Bloomingfoods. I enjoy hanging out with them, so I plan to continue joining them on these pre-movie dinners for the rest of the semester.

Currently killing time at the IMU. I had meant to use this time more productively, but I ended up eating dinner at Chipotle with Emily and her friend Shannon. Then, I spent the better part of an hour on the phone with Mom. And, now I don't have enough time to start properly working on my International Studies assignment on Sweden (Su-san!). I'm killing time because I'm going to go see the musical version of Beauty and the Beast at the IU Auditorium tonight! Alyssa and Emilia are coming along with me. I'm so excited because it's always been one of my favorite Disney movies! And, now it's time for me to go meet up with Alyssa and Emilia, so I will report on the musical later~.

This weekend has been going pretty good.

immelmanturn  came over to the GV Friday afternoon. The bunch of us then went shopping. When we returned, we helped yangwarrior make her grandmother's plum dumplings for all of us. During the dumpling making process, we took turns reading aloud from the Lots of Boys: Choose Your Own Adventure romance novel Nicole had picked up at the used book store. It was quite amusing. Then it was time for GV karaoke night, which is always a good time. It mostly turned into one giant sing-a-long.

Yesterday I watched so much anime. Spent the afternoon catching up with stuff for anime club, so we could go to it last night. I've really been enjoying watching both Utena and Library Wars. I'm sad that Library Wars is over, but I'm so glad that we've finished watching Chaos Head. That show was such a mess. Watching Ghost in the Shell: SAC right after it really made me appreciate just how awesome Ghost in the Shell is. I'm also happy that we've finally reached the part of Le Chevalier D'eon that I haven't seen.

This past weekend was interesting.

It started Friday, after classes, when my love life failed. I had been going out on dates with my friend Jared this school year (we dated a bit last year, too). I thought it was going well, but then he called me up to tell me that he doesn't want a relationship right now. Um, that wasn't the message I got from him the last time we hung out, when he was kissing me and cuddling with me. Whatever. I won't say I wasn't disappointed about the way things worked out, but I wasn't crushed either. I was still trying to figure out how compatible Jared and I actually were anyways. Now, I'm free to look for someone better!

Saturday, the Japanese Student Association had their yearly BBQ. The food was yummy. I also got to have yummy food for dinner, because stellawind and I got Korean food with our friend Minori. I was very pleased that I got to eat so much good food in one day.

Yesterday, there was a thunder storm. A tree in front of the dorm next to ours got hit by lightening! All the fire alarms in the quad then went off because the lightening fried the system. So, we had to stand outside in the pouring rain for probably a good 15 minutes. Really safe, right? Luckily, the rain let up, but we still had to stand around outside for over an hour. stellawind had been going to cook tempura for dinner, so we had invited immelmanturn over. She arrived and found us waiting around to be let back into the building. We were eventually let back in. And then we had a delicious tempura dinner. No one got hurt, so it was all somewhat amusing, aside from the part where I was cold and wet.

I am getting so sick of dorm food that it's not even funny. I've been eating the same foods over and over again. It's gotten to a point where I almost physically feel sick if I think about eating certain foods. I would kill for some fresh mango or kiwi right now. I also have a craving for sushi. I want good food!